


Lost your shoes at 12 AM? You're drunk.

by synchresis



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchresis/pseuds/synchresis
Summary: 21st Century AU - has no story/plot/concept connection to Dissidia, FFIV or FFXIII at all except for the characters which I do not own. Lightning/Kain centric, lots of profanity."Come home, the lights are still on", Kain wants to say. He wishes deeply that faith burned brighter tonight. He wants to ask Lightning when’s the last time she sang to herself. He wants to tell her about all the ways that it gets better, though it seems that she’ll see it for herself soon. Kain knows she will - even if it will take long and pain takes long and pain is always long.
Relationships: Kain Highwind/Lightning
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Lost your shoes at 12 AM? You're drunk.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a giftfic for Lady Raben as far back as 2016 - before I realized I haven't posted this anywhere, 2019 was already ending. 
> 
> Feelings-centric, sparse plot, and even vaguer character details. Extreme serving of angst and cussing, hope you enjoy. 
> 
> I apologize for the messy format, this looks so much better on the original MS word document.

  1. “ _What are you saying?_ ”   
  

  2. “ _Then why did you keep me around after all this time in the first place?_ ”   
  

  3. Lightning kicks back the urge to roll her eyes. _And I thought this rooftop would be my last saving grace._ She makes a tougher effort to continue doing so, because the teenager below on the courtyard at view is clutching his phone like it’s his only ticket to happiness  
  

  4. even more so because Lightning knows _a deathgrip that desperate will only backfire and get rammed back up your ass. Disappointment, betrayal and pain are your side accessories, take your pick. Ninety-nine percent though, you won’t even get a choice and this bitch of a life will serve all three to you cold.  
  
_
  5. It saddens Lightning a bit that he’s also holding a bouquet of flowers. _Those flowers look expensive, not that I give a damn._ She can’t decide if the stems will break before the teenager’s fists explode. She decides to watch and see.  
  

  6. There’s another man in the rooftop right in front of her. They see the same cavalcade but Lightning wonders how it looks from that man’s view. He can probably see the teenager’s eyes, Lightning the back of knees. They’re shaking. Of course, there are tears as well. _I wonder if that man can hear the kid too. He must, though; he’s just a few meters up.  
  
_
  7. The storm glass turns pale in her fingers, and new threads she’s never seen form near the top. _I’m sure the manual said that means windy..  
  
_
  8. The sudden gust that comes isn’t sudden but all the same, it snatches Lightning’s gaze and thoughts from the storm glass back to the man. It’s all a mouthless mutter, singing a song Lightning thinks she can match with the man’s granite-hard eyes if she just focused hard enough. Its fists packed a decent punch and she would give credits to its claws.   
  

  9. In all honesty, she could swear the threads in the storm glass could’ve come from his eyes.
  10. She blinks as it speeds past her and splits through the man’s terribly-overgrown bangs. Maybe it shares Lightning’s thought – _he could use a good haircut, although it looked beautiful overall.  
  
_
  11. _I’ve been fearless because I’ve been afraid.  
  
_
  12. “ _But I love you! And didn’t you tell me that, too?_ ”   
  

  13. There’s an awkward swallow stuck so miserably in Lightning’s vocal cords. _Futile comeback, boy_. Although _this is none of my business_. _Relationships these days don’t last shit_. She wonders if the man at the other rooftop is a no-life with nothing better to do than watch this boy’s misery for the drama  
  

  14. but when another gust splits his hair and reveals more of his face and she picks up on the soundless flurry in his eyes, that’s when she knows the pain is not foreign to him. He’s vulnerable to this whole live, free-of-charge (unasked-for) TV show-material scene in front of them (in front of their hearts) (in front of their consciences) (sending annoying unwanted jingle bells to memories they’d rather not unearth again and this makes Lightning inwardly roll her eyes for the sake of it).  
  

  15. He’s vulnerable to this whole scene because the pain is not foreign to him.   
  

  16. _Heck, it’s not foreign to me either_. _Way too many people just weren’t there when luck in love or life were being handed out.  
  
_
  17. _Luck in love isn’t received; it’s earned_ , the man’s eyes seem to say. Lightning can’t decide if it qualified as something significant enough to ponder on. _  
  
_
  18. “ _I don’t need any more of your lies. Normal people don’t go around cheating others.”  
  
_
  19. _Oh well, that one was decent_. _Futile to cheer for something you know will end up breaking, though_. Lightning pretends her eyes didn’t light up (in interest) (attachment) (sympathy).  
  

  20. She turns his gaze back to the man in the other rooftop because the teenager’s trash of an ex-to-be sounds like she’s cooking up something ridiculous, _this is gonna take a while_.   
  

  21. _He’s blond so for lack of knowledge, I’ll call him blondie for now_. His chest is hidden in layers of winter clothing but Lightning knows it held a heart that turned cruel to be kind. A book whose pages were ripped out in agony so unspeakable, chapped lips that kissed in the winter and kissed at red lights… _once upon a time_.   
  

  22. As the teenager’s knuckles pale and tighten even more and tighten even more and tighten even more and strangle and strangle and strangle the flower stems, Lightning notices how blondie shifts in sync with her own grimace. _Well isn’t this whole scene becoming multidimensional_. Her gaze is cemented so hard to this tough drama it hurts and when Lightning hears the phone screen’s glass shatter flat against the concrete and the teenager tosses the flowers in a direction he thought would make the petals shatter and burn ( _Boy, the physics of this shitty ass world just ain’t for you_ ), the blond man’s feet seem to be digging holes on the ground he’s standing on.   
  

  23. Lightning vaguely remembers her dreams during mornings - dreams of being in love with a person whose face she never really sees.  
  

  24. (or will never see again)  
  

  25. She cuts the thought of herself.   
  

  26. _Well, we all die with variety_. The teenager runs inside the building, runs and runs so hard in hopes his foot stomps would compete with the sobs and profanities his mouth is breathing out. It’s the ugliest form of carbon dioxide Lightning’s ever seen in her life.   
  

  27. And just like that, the scene becomes a museum stripped of its statues.   
  

  28. The blond readjusts his coat and Lightning can see his heart blooming through his coat - blooming in pain. dead flowers forced to re-bloom, forced to drink the tears of memories that were buried for a reason. _It’s impossible to prepare for the past -maybe we should try fixing things instead.  
_  
  

  29. Their eyes seem to meet. Lightning tells herself it’s inevitable, as awkward as it is.   
  

  30. She turns around and heads away.   
  

  31. He stays and watches her go.   
  

  32. _Anger is just the bodyguard of pain_.  
  

  33. She clutches the storm glass extra hard. More threads are forming at the top, weaving together their own beautiful mystery and Lightning knows this   
  

  34. won’t be the last time she sees this.  
  

  35. She knows this is just the beginning.   
  

  36. She knows this won’t be the last time this new feeling will drape around her – it’s a shawl – light and insignificant, but   
  

  37. maybe it’s what she needs.   
  

  38. The winds will greet her again   
  

  39. and bring the man.  
  
  
  




-lklklklklklklklklklklklklkl-  
  
  
  
  


  1. _The wind here is atrocious_ , although Kain doesn’t even blink. _That woman must be terribly oxygen-deprived if she can stand this…  
  
_
  2. _Nothing as soothing as the howling of the winds_. Kain takes a look at the woman in front of him. _Oh, that’s the spectator from the other day, right?  
  
_
  3. Kain takes a closer look at the woman in front of him. She’s alone in the night. She’s alone and she’s pretty much okay. Her presence is sharp and forte and comes on so strong that it almost hurts   
  

  4. hurts in a good way  
  

  5. hurts in a way that slams life back into him again  
  

  6. There seems to be an obnoxious outdoor EDM party on the other side of the bridge, and the stretch of strobe lights crossing over the river don’t match with the lady in front of him. Sure, they’re stunning and make him feel like freedom and swag and pleasure is coming on strong, but she’s more stunning. The lights touch at her like licks of flames but nothing looks farther from her. They don’t suit her. They intrude on her.  
  

  7. But she doesn’t move an inch. Although it couldn’t be that she didn’t know.  
  

  8. She sighs.  
  

  9. Kain can hear it over the absurd wind.   
  

  10. Her back is to him but he can already fancy the tiny specks of color in her eyes. the stubborn, striking starlight on her heart cutting through cloudy fog in her mind - all that’s left of her teartracks (he knew she is shedding some and this is why he’s being as quiet and as invisible as possible). He’s learned a long time ago that a person looks a certain kind of vulnerable when they think nobody can see them. that a person brims either with content or loneliness when watching eyes cannot see them. He wonders if the lady is content with peace or lonely with the lack of company.   
  

  11. He thinks it’s both.   
  

  12. He doesn’t have a single clue whose ashes it is she’s scattering on the river (setting free in the wind) (she looks like she’s gleefully getting rid of certain bullshit) (he looks for her victory smile but there’s none). Thin chance it’s a loved one cremated recently. Maybe love letters she burned out of pain? Skin starts off as porcelain then turns to ivory then ends up being steel.



  1. If this woman is a living illustration of it, she’s a fucking masterpiece.



  1. “Are you planning to camp here?” There’s no invitation, actually. there’s zero friendliness in her voice. He expected none. _The precious ones come the hardest.  
_ The wind does nothing even if the bite in her voice competes. Kain does nothing as well, really, because he doesn’t mind.



  1. “If you aren’t, please leave,” he would actually leave, but no. He feels like he wants to know what makes her the angriest. how she usually feels when she opens her eyes in the morning, if she’s ever come close to death. He tries to figure out whether she’s a lover or a fighter or somewhere in between but he’s at a standstill because she looks neither, and as much as that earns his respect and captures him in awe, he mourns a bit because she looks the kind of woman he’d want to be loved by and kissed by till it hurts and she looks the kind of woman he’d be honored to share medallions with. the kind of woman he’d trust to bury him with the right amount of honor and tears.



  1. But he’ll fret not, he’ll only be if she felt the same way. He never saw the point in force and he’s sure this woman has seen her share of overly-obnoxious and haughty _boys_ who think they’re entitled to anyone they want. He’s obviously not an angel but he doesn’t plan on being an asshole, either.  
  

  2. Excessively-dyed hair is such a huge eyesore for him but she sure did know how to balance out the colors. They’re a beautiful rose and pink and brown and it’s hair he can get lost in – “No, actually,” he says before it’s too late.   
  

  3. It’s either he’s way too distracted or way too focused on her. it’s such a slam-on because this all feels like finally slamming on the right wall after ages of ripped-out wings, especially when her throat is the kind that spits venom and magic like nobody’s business and they both seem like the same poles of the magnet so maybe they’ll always be more like friends but he knows they can be more and this time maybe it’s not gonna hurt. Scratch that and be more realistic, maybe it’s gonna hurt less and _that doesn’t sound too bad_. He knows he shouldn’t strain too much because even after all the nicotine and alcohol and screaming, he still believes that love is all lightness and love went wrong because he fought too tough. Maybe this time he’s holding the right solution and mixture, and she’ll hold the perfect glass and it’s all going to be a formula that’s going to work out.



_  
  
_

  1. “Oh, I see. You’re the one from the balcony the other day.” Her lips are full and gorgeous but look like smiles haven’t blossomed from them for a long time. It seems off, even though her eyes are such a transparent shade of blue they would beat actual tears. He feels like kissing laughter into her lips. screw what it takes.   
  

  2. He knows she’d look even more stunning when her jaw relaxes and her eyes light up like they’ve stolen one of the stars above them and the sad tightness in her shoulders uncoils. even if he knows at first glance she’s the woman who’d always say _no matter how well and fair and honest you play, the world is gonna be a shithole_. He doesn’t mind, because lips aren’t the only things in the face that has to smile for it to be a smile.  
  

  3. Kain doesn’t get sidetracked, at the same time – he knows the smile meant to be on her lips got strangled somewhere on the way when she was articulating the words.  
  

  4. From one look, he’s caught up on the fact that she didn’t expect him to realize that.   
  

  5. “You don’t have to give me your name if you don’t want to,” she says before he could say anything.   
  

  6. “If you need to say anything…anything at all…we can go for a walk. Or a drink.”  
  

  7. A furrowed brow on her side, and a harder look on his clarify that he’s hinting at the rooftop event. Kain knows she’ll get it.  
  

  8. “That’s a terrible pickup line.”   
  

  9. _She’s not avoiding me, she wants to avoid herself and why that kid’s confrontation the other day hit her so hard._  
  

  10. He only smiles. From one look, he’s caught up on the fact that she didn’t expect him to smile at that.   
  

  11. _She didn’t really expect me to pick up exactly what she was trying to avoid, now, did she?_  
  

  12. “It wasn’t meant to be one, and I didn’t mean to be flirting with you,” he shrugs and says evenly. He couldn’t help but wonder if she sleeps with the entire blanket or only some of it. He’s starting to think she discards the pillow as well.  
  

  13. “You suck at lying, tops. Anyway, I’ll just go with it. What led you to think I had anything to say, anyway?”   
  

  14. _I win.  
  
_
  15. _Either way, I like her.  
  
_
  16. “Either way, a drink doesn’t sound too bad for either of us.”  
  

  17. “You just avoided the question.”  
  

  18. “You’re terrible at lying too, so this drink idea is looking even better for both of us.”  
  

  19. “You don’t look like you watch those terribly-scripted romcoms but I can’t imagine where else you get these sleazy shit lines from. Let me give you some feedback – you’re way worse.”  
  

  20. “If I told you I wanted to go to a club because I wanted to fuck you, you’d discredit me for unoriginality and lack of creativity.”
  21. “Well, would you rather do it here? The party’s on the other side of the bridge and it seems such a waste to not be there – look at all these goddamn lights and this obnoxious music. I’m sure they worked hard on this for our fornication.”   
  

  22. He clears his throat. He feels amazing inside, like he’s screamed and screamed and screamed out all the pain and there was finally someone who could hear him. “That fucking part…was a joke.”   
  

  23. “It better be, else your dick is gonna be crying for momma. You’re unbelievable.”   
  

  24. Both of their words are bogus.   
  

  25. When their eyes catch each other, the words are daedal and they’re _on par_ and it’s something both of them have never said ever in their lives. Everything from the strobe lights flashing with increased obnoxiousness and the wind shutting up for a while – everything’s gravid with something they can’t really say.  
  

  26. “In the rooftops,” he says after a long silence, “that poor kid in the courtyard. You knew how he felt.”   
  

  27. “Hmm,” is all she returns.   
  

  28. _I won’t pressure you to tell me who you were, actually.  
  
_
  29. He’s confident she picked up on that.  
  

  30. He’ll ask her name next time.   
  

  31. _We’ll make a next time.  
  
_



-lklklklklklklklklklklklklklkl-  
  
  


  1. He sees her again in the graffiti café notorious for its quote/complaint/confession wall of heartbreak, unrequited love, and overall interpersonal dissatisfaction. _Love is the definition of entropy_ , he’s learned so many times he’s sick of it. It saddens him a bit that there are so many people in pain, but he’s part of the club so he can’t go into the pity game all of a sudden; he can’t stop paying membership credit. Nothing as good as being reminded that you’re not alone, although he knows big-time it’s those who vehemently deny signing up for the pain that end up being the ones who’ll never make it out clean. or sane.   
  

  2. _Scratch that, whoever makes it out sane? No one signs up for pain in their right minds in the first place. It’s all a wretched cycle that cheats us. It’s all some collusion that’s totally out of our hands - even if we are the main characters.  
  
_
  3. _Love is worse than the government_ , he wants to add to the wall just for the hell of it. _  
  
_
  4. To an extent, he did believe that if you weren’t at the point where you’ve lost faith in anything or anyone, you’re not hurt enough yet. Even if it sounded too rude and inconsiderate even to him, he did agree to an extent.



  1. He knew he’d see her there, sooner or later.  
  

  2. He knew she’d be here. His luck today just happens to have hit the jackpot.   
  

  3. In all honesty, he was never a believer of luck.  
  

  4. Coincidences? Not so much, either.  
  

  5. She’s all perfect posture and fists that have the most impressive routine of unclenching-clenching, eyes that know when to close and when to let the tears flow. lips that hold matches between the teeth and lips that hold a voice that’s both luminous and dissonant. She makes him wonder all over again after all these years what it was that made a kiss count and what kind of happiness was the one that would make you cry until you finally learn how to let go. Maybe he’s being retarded, practically worshipping someone who’s out of his league. but it didn’t have a price and that’s a good enough excuse even if he knows all-too-well these are the tricks of brain that cost you everything in the end.  
  

  6. Absentmindedly, she tries to fix the mess of a bun she has and if she thinks her eyes are still in the living world, she is wrong because the graffiti wall has already stolen her soul (and her heart) (and her eyes) (she has already stolen his). And if she thinks she’s the only one stuck in that place, she’s wrong because she’s also reeled him in and he can’t take his eyes off her and he can’t remember when’s the last time he’s been able to actually _look_ at someone.  
  

  7. Together but separately, they pin their eyes to the _I love you the bests_ and _I’ll wait forever_ They only make fractions of contact on the _I loved you the most but you should’ve treated me better_ s and the _Maybe we just weren’t meant to be_ s. Kain does have some feel for how each of the stories ended up, more than what’s comfortable. Through the course of this, his inward flinches are uncountable - as much as he tried to make them as invisible as possible. It just happens; lips that prayed like hell once upon a time and a ribcage whose flowers have sadly turned to cigarettes throughout the years _do not really forget_.   
  

  8. “Assholes,” the lady releases and sums up his 5 minutes of contemplative agony in one word, and with a spit at that. Before he could smile to himself, he’s already given her a special applause.
  9. “Hmm?”  
  

  10. “Do you know why the people here wrote on this wall?”



  1. “Aside from the dissatisfaction, you mean?”  
  

  2. “Yea. It’s because assholes cut off communication,” she answers her own question. He confirms that she’s the kind of woman who doesn’t need anything from a man. At least, nothing conditional or shallow.  
  

  3. This time, Kain isn’t the only one looking. She’s also looking at him, and they’re both looking at each other.  
  

  4. “I won’t be like that,” he seems to be saying something along those lines. 



  1. “You’re really into me, aren’t you?”  
  

  2. “You should take another look at yourself. Not that I’m complaining.”   
  

  3. He leaves first so she won’t be embarrassed.   
  

  4. “ _Lightning_ ,” the lady calls out before he’s too far. rushes back to him and makes sure he hears her. “That’s the name.”  
  

  5. “Pleased to meet you, Lightning,” he turns around and faces her as properly as possible. shakes her hand. figures he’ll have a chance to kiss it later. He can’t remember the last time he’s said those words and meant every single syllable of it. “I’m Kain. Kain Highwind.”



  
  
-lklklklklkl-  
  
  
  


  1. “Well, you won that raffle, Rosa,” having woken up on the wrong side of the bed, Lightning already gets that _this day is gonna be weirdass_ and _there’s gonna be funny business._ “I can’t possibly take your chance to get a free signature dress-”   
  

  2. Lightning is still rubbing the wrinkles that her faux beauty sleep has gifted her with and it’s a bit difficult to catch up with Rosa when she’s so excited over the phone, _as usual – maybe to make up for the absence of her magnificent facial expressions in this case –_ “Oh come on. I’m gonna be staying in this resort for a few more days and it’ll go to waste. My closet is already overflowing with dresses as it is, so much that I believe Cecil’s adopted some by now. Besides, you’ve been looking like you could use it-”  
  

  3. “ROSA!!”   
  

  4. “See? You do. Now go. Also, you’re in luck because lots of flights are cancelled today, meaning the airport is going to be practically deserted. Bye.”  
  
  
  
  
-lklklklklkl-  
  
  
  
  

  5. Kain does not understand why there’s a delivery boy in front of his door at 6AM in the fricking morning trying to convince him that this suit was sent for him. He does not w _ant_ to understand.  
  

  6. “Cecil,” he breathes fire into the phone and he doesn’t give a shit if the delivery boy’s head ends up singed, “The suit – is it you? I swear, if this is another blind date-”  
  

  7. “Arena has their once-a-year formal night today. That’s one. Two, they’re playing slow rock. Something you like. Third, you need to get laid. You’ll become a hermit at this rate.”  
  

  8. “I don’t,” Kain sighs before hanging up.



  1. Either way, he thanks the delivery boy.   
  

  2. “It’s really well-made, sir. Dark navy blue, which I believe suits you very well,” he manages to squeak out.  
  

  3. _Actually, I think Lightning will like this…  
  
  
_



-lklklklklkl-

  
  
  
  


  1. There are barely any people – she wishes and wishes and keeps wishing Rosa was just exaggerating because _the airport looks wrong, this is all wrong, maybe at least I can pretend to be okay when there are some goddamn fucking people, why am I here, I should’ve stayed at home, why did it have to be this place  
  
_
  2. _why did I not remember that it was here  
  
_
  3. __why did I forget?_  
_



  1. _why did I remember  
  
_
  2. __why am I remembering  
  
__
  3. _why did I not forget  
  
_
  4. _after all these years, why is it that I still haven’t forgotten_



  1. _why does it still hurt me  
  
_
  2. _why do I still care, when I have no more fucks left to give  
  
_
  3. Sunlight sparks prisms along the glass walls and it’s even more terrifying than staying alive for the slowest death. It runs along everything glass for the matter, and Lightning feels like glass all over again, she feels like she’s going to shatter again and she’s going to shatter alone because the glass walls are real and she is the fake one in this world, she’s the one who can’t let go, she’s the one who’s silently killing her own heart and although she’s learned it’s not the way to go, shattered glass can never return to what it was.  
  

  4. _the love wasn’t real, the love wasn’t what it should’ve been  
  
_
  5. Sunlight’s definitely not trying to put a smile on her face today. She knows because she can’t see the way, she sees no answers and she feels all the pain. It’s thorough and fickle and she feels small, she feels so fucking exposed. as if sunlight is scanning the barcode of her identification card to pain – number by number, bar by bar of each mistake made and every single word she couldn’t say - all the while laughing. It’s hard to keep her eyes open. It’s so hard to see, even if the sunlight would want to try feigning hospitality and show her something else.  
  

  6. _It was raining that day.  
_
  7. _If it was sunny, would he not have left?  
  
_
  8. _She doesn’t care about how her face looks right now.  
  
_
  9. The phone rings. Lightning accepts the call but doesn’t look at who it is.



  1. “Lightning…Lightning! I’m so sorry. They told me it was in the other airport. If I knew it was in the one you’re in right now, I wouldn’t have asked you-”  
  

  2. “It’s okay, Rosa. I’m fine.”  
  

  3. It’s not a complete lie.  
  

  4. _I will be fine_ , she internally corrects herself for improvement.



  1. “Lightning…I was so selfish…”  
  

  2. “What are you saying? You weren’t. And yes, it was supposed to be in the other airport but they called me and said it was this one. I don’t really mind, Rosa. I-”



  1. “I’m really sorry..”  
  

  2. “I need to thank you, Rosa. For the chance. It’s not every day I get a free dress.”



  
  


-lklklklklklklkl-  
  
  
  


  1. “We’ve been expecting you,” she’s greeted with a smile so big Lightning almost laughed at the thought of the tailor’s teeth exploding. As they walk through the mannequins and all the dresses on display, Lightning’s eyes are gloss over the 36-24-36s and the lace and the fur and the cloths with names too fancy to pronounce. designer lipstick packaged with some dresses for their current promotion, and of course shoes that are actually beautiful if you forgot the prospect of sprained ankles and unfortunate trips to the ER. Beauty is indeed pain. And injury. Although it did cost a lot to be ugly.  
  

  2. The whole store smells like strawberries. Lightning actually doesn’t mind. _Better strawberry-smelling than crap-smelling eh._  
  

  3. “Do you have any specific preferences? Although you would rock most dresses because you’re tall and have a good figure….” the head tailor keeps smiling at her and Lightning wouldn’t doubt that her hands are better than a magic wand and her fingers would actually physicalize magic. transformation. At this point, she _needs_ to believe. “I always tell my customers not to go for the Cinderella factor, or any fairy tale mindset, actually. It’s as simple as this – find a dress that suits your body and everything, and you’ll rock all the rest. And….don’t go trying to lose your shoes. You’ll need to get home. Oh of course, I’m just blabbering…do forgive me..”  
  

  4. “I don’t mind,” Lightning shrugs, grateful for the distraction. “Something formal but at the same time easy. I like cross straps, but what would you recommend for the rest of the dress’ cut?”   
  

  5. “Hmm,” Lightning is too drained in all honesty to mind the head tailor’s scrutinizing of her body, “Mermaid cut would show your curves off. Any particular color?”   
  

  6. “I don’t mind either…what do you think would suit me? This is my first time doing this…and I’ve never done things like these in my life.”  
  

  7. “No worries, dear. There’s a first time for everything.”



  1. Lightning knows better than anyone that she’s been tired for a long time and for as long as she’s been tired, that’s exactly how much and how hard she needs to believe. Whatever the results may be.  
  

  2. She prays and prays and prays hard that the tailor wouldn’t say yellow or fuschia. She walks into a closet and disappears for a while.   
  

  3. _Lightning, you idiot, this was a terrible idea…what if she’s taking too long because nothing suits me….screw this…  
  
_
  4. Soon enough, the tailor comes back with a dress that’s not yellow or fuschia. It’s beautiful – neutral but at the same time elegant enough. It’s complete and all that – Lightning wasn’t planning to be picky but she breathes out a sigh of relief, thanking whatever gods may be above that it’s not an eyesore or a slutty shit that’ll make her look like an omelet or had obtrusive feathers that would bar her from doors and make her look like a peacock.   
  

  5. “Coral-chiffon,” the head tailor explains. “Cross-strap cutout, and thankfully we have the mermaid cut that would suit you exceptionally well. This is what it’s called.”   
  

  6. Lightning’s knuckles relax. It’s about time she starts believing in the right things and look away from the decoys. “This looks…really amazing,” she runs her hand over it. _It’s soft, but firm_. “Even the neckline and the waist straps are embellished in silver? Will these cost me extra if I bought this without the promotion, though?”   
  

  7. “Of course, and the side-splits on the waist are a real bonus,” she gives Lightning a wink. “You were in luck. Rosa’s a generous one. Has she told you about the special event in Arena today?”   
  

  8. “Speaking of Arena, your dress is a perfect match for today there,” the customer beside her chimes in. “It’s one of their rare nights,” she smells like bubblegum and she has nailart that made Lightning wonder how the hell she shampoos her hair. “They don’t ask for easy formal every day. Not to my taste coz they’ll be playing slow rock allthroughout - ironically.”  
  

  9. “I bet it’s gonna be less crowded then,” Lightning is actually starting to get interested. 



  1. “It’s still a club, don’t forget that. But yes, definitely it’s going to be more laidback. Slow rock ain’t the vogue at the moment.”  
  

  2. “Thanks for the tip,” Lightning eyes the emerald ball gown the other customer is trying out. It’s beautiful – its owner even more so. Eventually the conversation drifts toward her engagement party, _this is why I’m buying this specific dress – because my boyfriend has terribly high standards but we’re both happy in the end_. It’s all just babble and sharing, typical _I’m so lucky to have found a man like him_ , but Lightning leaves the store as soon as her dress is packed.  
  
  




-lklklklklkl-  
  
  
  


  1. Not a single sip of alcohol yet and her mind is already reeling. She doesn’t blame herself. She curses herself a million times for going to that goddamned airport. She ponders about wind and air and solace and peace, how even the mere contemplation of it liminal in this combustion of people and insincerity and neon and impulse and abandon. Maybe the dark, overbearing walls are eating her ground up. That, or maybe they’re just gateways for a grand path away from loneliness. Faux-couples already litter the inglorious, questionable trail, swallowed by the darker lighting and Lightning swears that even if she was in this place as a child, with awkward limbs and gullible eyes and front teeth that haven’t even grown completely yet, it would be the insincerity of it that would scare her. more, more, way more than the shadows that are starting to girdle her insides into uneasiness.  
  

  2. “Cuddles” spurred on by the booze inside the private rooms would be the fakest kind of affection that will make you vomit, and everyone knows the screwing in the night would be as intense as the breakup/” _It was just a one-night-stand_ ” that would slam into them the following morning, successful or not. Strobe lights alternating with the flames of shadows prefigure the trap, the imminent fuckup. It’s all a bad decision. With these kinds of setups, hangovers burgeoned by heartbreaks and yelling were the grandest you’ll be rewarded with. 



  1. _Why the hell did I even think of going here?_  
  

  2. Still, Lightning keeps wandering (and wondering). Blond hair blown by the wind and brown eyes so intense they blend with the pupil, steady palms, fingers that occasionally jitter – the thought of him wraps around her, such effortless armor repelling the temptation. _And he’s not even here._ She could just take anyone right here right now but loneliness with emptiness for an accomplice was the less potent drug than loneliness because of the wrong person for company. She thinks back to the airplane that never made its promised return trip. How the unsettling foreign wind sings her unfulfilled wishes and cowed hopes back to her in reverse, in sheer mockery. _every single goddamn year_. _Happy anniversary to my adorable fuckup. Let’s get drunk and wasted to celebrate.  
  
_
  3. _A couple bumps into her and none of them apologize. none of them care. It knocks the wind out of her, though; it nearly whips tears out of her lungs and then it suddenly comes to her that Kain’s surname is something related to the feeling of looking at the sky and the rapture that came with freedom. He’s the embodiment of wind, practically. She can’t seem to pull her thoughts away from how Kain is like wind, how Kain is practically wind.  
_



  1. _Speak of the devil  
  
_
  2. _Is that Highwind?_  
  

  3. He’s wearing a dark navy-blue suit and it’s perfectly-tailored for his size and he doesn’t look like a try-hard pimp and he actually knows how to dress properly and Lightning could murder him for looking more attractive than he already is, but she rolls her eyes and keeps on rolling them, fuck it if it’s the alcohol talking because she has no energy left to care.  
  




-lklklklklklklklklkl-  
  


174\. “ _There’s no potential between us_ ,” Lightning swings at him (or mostly to herself) the moment they get a private room, deciding she was the more courageous one between them to be the first to dash their hopes. She might think she’s heroic, but this is going to put many kinds of tears in his eyes. It’s so empty, so airheaded of an excuse that even Lightning herself blinks and blinks again. Like this, it was impossible for Kain to buy it – maybe at least, she should’ve said it with more gall, and eyes that weren’t shaking so damn much. If she was going to do this, she should’ve at least tried to make it sound a little less like every syllable is tearing her apart.

  1. Then maybe he can feign belief.  
  

  2. He wants to tell her how beautiful she looks in that dress – how well the color compliments her skin and how charming it is that the cut enhances her figure.



  1. He can’t get ahold of the perfect timing. In all honesty, she looks like she’s dying to say something about his suit as well.  
  

  2. Neither of them can get ahold of the perfect timing.  
  

  3. The sardonic hope, if it could be called so – that particular light in her eyes flicker in and out, flicker in and out, flicker in and out…potentially brewing all sorts of tears…but the little shits don’t go out...



  1. “ _You’re saying that because you grew as your love grew_ ,” Neither could determine where they are, personally, in the dimensions of time. Lightning insists she’ll be stuck in the past forever and Kain can’t pretend he can’t feel her agony, but he’d be the one who’ll try to haul both of them into the future. For crying out loud, this is getting trickier and trickier and trickier, but the fucks they gave kept reaching record-breaking negative values. They could win degrees for this.   
  

  2. “ _You can’t possibly even begin to know who I was_ ,” she tries closing the gap between their lips. To one of them, it feels like whole, beautifully-full roses closing bullet wounds. It doesn’t make sense and her actions do anything but match her words, both of them realize it. Both of them care nothing for it.   
  

  3. Kain doesn’t freeze.  
  

  4. Kain doesn’t inch closer.
  5. Kain doesn’t pull away.   
  

  6. Kain does nothing although both know he’s feeling _something_ at the least, and that’s when he sees her smile a smile he’s never seen her done before. _She just decided she likes this_. There’s a sad yet wicked glimmer in her eyes, a convoluted elegy sung by the same lunatic setting the bomb off.



  1. “ _You’re right, I can’t. Because this thing we’re doing right now is happening in our own sweet present time. Has us trapped in it_ ,” amusement attaches itself to his lazy drawl, just before he’s caught her dodging lips - because after the first time, the grenade has left her eyes and has already melted into tears.  
  

  2. It’s the quickest chemical transformation Kain has ever witnessed in his life.



  1. He finds himself in awe.



  1. He files it away for memory purposes – Lightning can’t do it more than one time in a row. Third, fourth – fifth successful recapture in a row and that’s the limit – that’s when he can’t smother his laugh anymore. Lightning picks up on the detail that it’s not a derogatory one, but rather a laugh that reflects that he’s sincerely enjoying it, whatever this thing they’re doing is called. She looks like she’s allowing herself to feel flattered.



  1. “Are you seriously complaining that this is taking so damn long?” Lightning thinks the finger she slides across his jaw is teasing, but it’s more contemplative. sad, maybe. It’s even sadder how she feigns kissing it as she looks deep in his metal-hard eyes. The saddest, when her eyes feign to be diamond dust expecting Kain to freeze in some sort of metaphoric delight.



  1. He feigns right back for her. He thinks she picks up on his smile.  
  

  2. “That’s what I’m saying,” he doesn’t move, though. He is thunder, and he is impressive. He is thunder so soundlessly yet so agonizingly drawing the line –  
  

  3. “ _Don’t make your body lie to me_ ,” her voice is acerbic. “ _You know you want to_ ,” the grenade in her eyes flash back, saying hi with a full smile as Lightning shoves the half-empty shot glasses down the floor and Kain worries about the glass shards that might’ve pricked her fingers, plus the bill, and the waitress that rushed to see if they were okay knew to leave them be but honest to all the deities, Lightning did not give a single shit about who sees or hears them. She cared even less about the damage repair bill. At least, for now.



  1. “ _I was saying_ ,” Kain tries again, the flow seriously awkward, “ _I’m not complaining_.” His swollen lips look pale when they’re lost in Lightning’s hair.



  1. “Let’s do this for a long time.”



  1. He doesn’t dare to touch the cloth of her dress.  
  

  2. “Get me lip insurance,” Lightning’s laugh is something that pushes back all time lag and present dullness. That’s all it takes for Kain to promise to himself that it’s something that would never move on to become the past. It would not be time.



  1. He’d make it eternity.



  1. If it’s Lightning, he’d make it eternity.



  1. He _will_ make it eternity.



  
  


-lklklklklklklklklklkl-  
  


201\. The seconds tick closer and closer to 5am and they’ve started drinking the dynamites straight from the bottles long long long ago. It’s around this time when Lightning learns how collarbones bumping into each other elicit butterflies as well, although the purer kind. She also learns all the rivulets of heartbeats and atomic processes charted under Kain’s seemingly-mundane neck, every single map of skin like they’re relativity equations only she can decipher. _Maybe I’ll get some bootleg from this later on…somehow…  
  
_

  1. This makes Kain smile quietly, because if she thinks she’s doing a good job of masking the reverence in her eyes, she’s got another thing going. It’s been about the seventeenth time they flatter each other’s attire, Kain’s words being the more sincere compared to Lightning’s, because _she never misses the opportunity to throw in some sort of lowkey or highkey sarcasm and sass and shade.  
  
_
  2. Kain kisses her even harder.



  1. “ _Why are you kissing me?_ ” Lightning asks, the domino flock of one-million-questions within that one question arched in a quiet whisper and diluted with a certain amount of vulnerability. Nothing extra, nothing short, she decides – just the right amount.   
  

  2. “ _Why are you kissing me?”_ it’s hard for Kain to stop and in all honesty, Lightning doesn’t mind. Why would she need air when Kain Highwind’s right in front of her face?  
  

  3. “ _Why are you kissing me?_ ” It takes a while for Kain to answer even if this is her third time asking, and in all honesty, Lightning doesn’t mind. He comes back with silence every time, she’ll repeat her questions twice more.



  1. “ _It’s damn hard to give. Taking is much easier_.”



  1. “What exactly are you taking?”



  1. “ _There_ ,” he breathes, “ _another one. Your lips_.”



210\. “You’re _giving_ me one,” Lightning corrects him even if she’s the one confused. “You’re not taking.” She smiles a strange smile. The night is reeling away and as the dawn approaches, they’re telling each other things they haven’t admitted even to themselves. about countless nights playing murderer in the dark, trying their best to choke down their own hopes because it’s less painful than unsated desires. Many a wasted and ugly day in the bar, days not so different from this one, except they’re not happy and they weren’t lucky enough to have even a mangle of hope and neurons that could process the fact that a future actually exists. There was no lightning/thunder to shatter his painful mirage, and there was no wind to whisper “ _I love you_ ” as kisses against her ears. They both know all-too-well and have learned these certain lessons as painful as they could possibly be – that love, affection, dependence, and lust were as different as north was from south and east and west and all that jazz and you’ll just end up so miserably lost. _Confuse any one of these motherfuckers with each other and you’re screwed_. That it’s tough luck the vectors would ever intersect, and even if they did, the road would be as illusory as hell, if not a quagmire. That love may have been their greatest talent but it’s the one sole thing that’s made them as cold as ice.

  1. One moment, Kain is breathing gentle wind into her lips like a gift, hush and wholesome. the next, he is blowing away the phantoms of her tears. She can’t help but remember how on Earth, wind refers to the moisture of air, but in outer space it’s a stream of charged particles coming from the Sun.



  1. She doesn’t know how on Earth she can think of science when her head is reeling big-time, sunk in the heavy haze of Kain’s unrelenting kisses.   
  

  2. They’re both fingering through the gazillion petals guarding each other’s souls and god knows what comic or partisan version of tonight (or this midnight, to be more accurate) will carry over to their lonely brains the next morning when they wake up with hangovers of the damn century, their fellow individual teardrops kissing each other. kindred dirges promising a kindred hope. knuckles against revering lips that spoke of terrifying (beautiful) promises the dead night before. fingers that traced the Korean characters for love which weren’t far from “ _I want to spend forever with you_ ” on indefinite yet willing wingbones.



  1. It’s the happiest nightmare Lightning ever has.



  1. It’s the most hallowed reality Kain’s ever been blessed with.



216\. It’s the only reality that will wipe the tears from both of their eyes.  
  
  
  
-lklklklklkl-

  
  


  1. The next day, he spots Lightning at the quote/graffiti/whatever café again. This time, she’s cooking up an addition to the wall.  
  




218\. In all honesty, he’s curious and he’s hopeful.  
  


219\. “ _Love enough and before you know it, you’ll be loving to death_ ,” it read. This is where Kain learns that when Lightning writes, her letters lean a bit to the right and they’re a bit uneven. It’s only one small line in the sea of scribbles and words and hopes and agony but no matter- in Kain’s eyes, they’re spun gold.

  1. He doesn’t really know how he feels about the addition Lightning just made.



  1. Lightning doesn’t know Kain is watching her stare at the wall.



  1. Maybe Kain guesses correctly that Lightning’s jaw is tight and tensioned with the million words compressed into that one sentence.



  1. He tries to convince himself that it’s more important that Lightning isn’t frozen in pain anymore and Lightning _is finally opening up to herself_ , because magic is just science that hasn’t been explained yet, and contrary to popular belief magic is also made of chemical bonds but ironically ones that even science can’t touch or undo, and sure as hell it takes time - difficult lessons are a mandatory shibboleth for love that’s real, but damn,



  1. _I really wanted to put a smile on her face._



  
  
  


-lklklklklklklklklkl-  
  
  


  1. Threads frantically gather at the top of the glass again, the way it always does _when he’s there or when he’s near_. She hopes Kain sees it and reads it and internalizes it, picks up the phenomenon in the words, and smile because _he’s the one who’s made all this possible_. Of course she’ll never admit that, but hey.   
  

  2. She leaves the café with a smile because she knows Kain already knows that healing wounds are indeed healing but stitches still hurt and scar tissue operose in patching itself up is still painful no matter how miniscule. This time, she’ll show him new roses so teeming with hope and so gravid with the future that they’d burst, growing out of bullet wounds they thought would bleed forever.   
  

  3. When the light of day dies and she stares at the full moon for ages till she feels like it’s spitting light at her eyes, she doesn’t know what the hell is going wrong. For fuck’s sake, she doesn’t even know if there’s something going wrong, so wrong that all of a sudden everything is vertiginous and all of a sudden the darkness that’s stopped scaring her becomes all vulpine and unescapable again.



  
  
  


-lklklklklklklklklklkl-  
  
  


  1. Their correspondence that night is hazy as hell, circuitous. Lightning doesn’t seem to understand the words that are coming out of her and the consistent ping of message notifications alarm sadden Kain to a point, _because it’s not like her_. Her words are too honest to be drunk nothings but they’re too unshielded to not be drunk nothings, but then Kain remembers drunk nothings are tears feigning laughter so much it hurts, that they’re truths masking themselves as mistakes because it’s a world where being correct gets you either stepped on, lied to, abandoned or shot. General apathy and the fact that asshole treatment is considered the norm are the world’s venerated totems and Kain curses the world, curses the man that bruised Lightning’s heart and soul.   
  

  2. but most of all, he curses the world.



  1. Her main agenda seems to be something like “ _I don’t need your pity_ ” swilled in with “ _If you’re gonna hurt me, do it right_.” The latter is the smaller, quieter part of it although it jabs the most painfully. the most harshly. Kain wouldn’t associate Lightning with the occupation of “speaker” or “performer”, but tonight he is her only audience. He can’t decide how to applaud her, how to congratulate her for her speech – in tears of sympathy (he picks up easily that she’d punch him for that) or in respectful silence or an emotionless ovation.



  1. _Ghosts haunt themselves first_ , he’s read from a book once.



  1. Kain offers zero words of sympathy.



  1. He doesn’t pretend to be deaf. He can’t pretend to be deaf. He can’t pretend he hasn’t uttered the same desperate profanities with the same tears in his eyes and he can’t deny that the sight of crushed hopes and strangled feelings were blurred by the very same liquid. Not loving anyone may have earned him a first-class ticket on the “invulnerable” train, but it was his own eyes that seemed to grow darker. Torpor steered one away from heartbreak, but it never took you on a world-class cruise.



  1. He thinks of things to say: _I’m just as human as you are_. _I’m sorry if I hurt you; I didn’t mean to_. None of them are good enough. None of them won’t hurt her. None of them won’t insult her defeated pride on the escarpment that’s already torn to lonely paroxysms. _Heavens are harder to own than hells_ , after all. He thinks back, he ponders and ponders, whether it was the way she kissed his collarbones or the way he inhaled her sad scent back in the bar that slushed salt on her invisible wounds. He can’t decide. He settles for both. He blames neither. _This world is so abstruse and it’s tearing people apart more than it is teaching them what love should really be._



  1. He decides that no matter how gentle they go, anything could qualify as salt. Anything could hurt. At this point, it was more than obvious that they’ve taken so many hits from the ones they’ve loved (but didn’t love them; anyway, it didn’t really matter) that bruises felt like kisses.



  1. In the end, he settles for



  1. “ _I’m not loving you to save you_. _I’m loving you because I want to._ ”



  1. It’s the answer that Lightning’s been looking for and Kain knows because Lightning lets him come over when he asks and they both fall asleep with arms around each other. arms that have known emptiness and coldness better than the winds of the North and South Pole combined. Tonight, they are arms that will be filled. arms that will un-know the deathgrip of difficult nights, one stagnant imprint erased after the other. And when Lightning asks him a question, he would also ask the same exact question



  1. and they’d have the same exact answers.



  
  
  


-lklklklklklklklkl-  
  
  


  1. They open the curtains and count the windows in each skyscraper – the ones dimmed for Kain, and the lit ones for Lightning. Both of them wonder if love comes in the currency of voltage and electricity. She tells him that her past is an armor that she’ll never learn to unbuckle, no matter how many sunrises dry her tears when she wakes up in the morning and no matter how many unlonely nights, not different from this one, try to convince her that the war is over. That she’ll be deaf to fanfares because she can’t remember the last time her ears were able to hear lullabies.



  1. Kain kisses her, anyways. A full-on, drawn-out regalia from forehead to lips to knuckles. He kisses her anyways and tell her it’s no trouble even if they both know that there are a million other ways to bleed than just cuts on skin   
  

  2. and there are a million other ways to hurt than bruises kissing bone.  
  

  3. He has already anticipated Lightning’s next protest.   
  

  4. He’ll greet it with the most welcoming embrace.   
  

  5. She’ll avert her eyes and look away. pretend that the wall or the floor or the ceiling or the window can put miles between their heartbeats   
  

  6. She’ll protest and protest and she’ll say _this kind of love is impossible_ ; _it’s too good to be true_. That _life isn’t a fairy tale_ – if you lose your shoe at midnight, you’re drunk - and that’s all there is to the story. You won’t find fireflies if you get lost; you’ll be torn to _pieces_ by the wolves.   
  

  7. but this will not dishearten Kain at the slightest. In fact, he’ll look longer and harder at her when she tells him she needs to run away from herself for a while. He’ll look at her with silence that’s so ambiguous. silence and sincerity so ambiguous that every single bruise and punch and “ _I love you_ ”s whispered to the wrong person will be crushed to insignificant powder. silence and sincerity so ambiguous that all her sharp edges will just simply cease to hurt. Lightning would be left with no choice but to close her eyes, even though they both know it won’t be any help, that it won’t shield her from the reality of Kain Highwind beside her, this reality that she’ll never ever allow herself to admit she’s been looking for   
  

  8. for a long time now.   
  

  9. Kain’s silence would win in the end even if Lightning still insists on running away because it’s more than enough to tell her that she’s never really seen her reflection in the mirror.   
  

  10. “ _You’re so beautiful_ ,” Kain makes sure she hears this (even if they both know she doesn’t want to). By the time he’s through with her, he will make sure she feels like the most beautiful woman in the world (as cliché as it sounds). The night is young and both of them plan to get lost in each other’s eyes until the raging static in their souls grow a bit quieter. They’ll look at each other a million more times, each time like it’s their first again and they’ll invent a trillion more decimal places and a trillion more ways to say the number one again. They’ll lose themselves in each other’s eyes and find themselves again in each other’s heartbeats, and give their unhappy reflections a break from the face they can’t even see anymore.



-lklklklklklklklkl-

  
  


  1. They don’t talk for a while and it’s okay. It’s a week-long of goodnights, the ones so accommodating yet also the kind that at least one of them hoped would extend to something more. but then, they decide to just leave it be – it’s best that way. It’s also a weeklong of “good morning”s that aren’t sent at mornings but rather sent at ungodly hours because neither could stay asleep for long when it’s deep into the night and the metaphoric death seems to be endless and stuck forever in the nastiest loop. Lightning wonders up until which level of insanity they’d ace. Lightning also wonders if this is an inversion of how real lovers talk, because she doesn’t need to see Kain to know he’s smiling.   
  

  2. Whether this was real insanity or real love, Lightning doesn’t really mind.  
  

  3. Maybe there’s only one possible explanation as to why wind can shape fertile land forms and multiply flower petals and give easy renewable energy but at the same time fuel fires and spur on waves as terrifying as mountains and wreck a city of skyscrapers and slam an innocent person’s lungs to its death –   
  
  

  4. Maybe love is just art for the hell of it.  
  

  5. Cool air sinks  
  

  6. Warm air rises  
  

  7. Air always smells fresher before it rains  
  

  8. Lightning knows of unfair collateral. Lightning knows of loans that take everything from you and even after that give nothing in return. Once upon a time, she’s given every single cell and ounce and microgram of blood and being and dreams that the only warranty she has left to offer now is her tears.  
  

  9. She realizes she’s screwed, because Kain has blown them away - every single one of them. from the root to the surface to the spirit. If she told him she needs chips for the biggest gamble in her life, would he let her borrow them for a while? Would he let her have them back and kiss them back to her eyelashes and throat and chest and waist and knees, where he took them? 



260\. Or should she just ask for new tears?  
  


  1. No one can see the wind. No one can hold it in their hands.   
  

  2. She understands.   
  

  3. What she’ll see instead are new ripples on the pond of her tears, sighs falling in the shape of autumn leaves dancing in a circle. vestige dust and out-of-place grit swirling off their sandcastle of victory.   
  

  4. Wind corresponds to the East, and that also happened to be where the sun rose.   
  

  5. Maybe for once, she’s in luck.



-lklklklklklklkl-

  
  


  1. Kain wonders exactly how hazardous the new construction site will be for the careless drunkards flooding out of Arena. He figures the area’s fenced off safely enough but hologram dresses that have kissed and sucked in strobelights and stilettoes that have waded or jumped through vomit will forever carry the club’s babel. Alcohol that went to brains instead of stomach as supposed to are just simply incendiary, no further explanation needed – and majority of brawls are never not impromptu   
  

  2. and anything can happen in the dark.  
  

  3. It’s not always beautiful.  
  

  4. It’s most often not beautiful.  
  

  5. When Kain sees Lightning in the dark, braving the December snow in nothing but sweatpants, a pullover and platform sneakers, he learns for himself that extemporaneous could most often mean beautiful.   
  

  6. When a familiar silver-haired teen bumps into her, almost toppling over – all shaking shoulders and bloodshot eyes and knuckles whiter than the snow his boots half-heartedly kick at, Kain learns for himself that strange could most often lead to a certain kind of beautiful.   
  

  7. It’s the boy from the rooftop. He’s somewhere between a storm of rage and wailing strangled by apathy. Bloodshoot eyes and hobo fashion, whatever alcohol he drank obviously wasn’t from Arena.   
  

  8. He’s alone, and the first thought that Kain has is that they both wish someone held their hand in this cold.   
  

  9. When Lightning holds the boy’s shoulders as he’s about to fall, Kain learns for himself how his woman’s hands could be as solid as they were caring. It all seems incongruous with her steely eyes but then Kain starts to notice that Lightning’s eyes are the kind that change color. They’re eyes that cut through a wall of steel to give you a view of the pearly gates, eyes that chase away the darkness in your mind just to make sure you feel home.   
  

  10. Someone leaves the club doors open. Slow waltz music drifts through the air, so expensive, so flighty. so far from the world they live in, a fantasy of masquerading lovers kissing each other’s hands and princes dancing the night away. It’s almost a mockery teetering on top of their mishmash and bedlams and throes of emotional confusion, even if nothing will top the sweetness of emotional safety. and although the slow waltzes match with the snow, Kain wishes they made way for him to see the stars in the flurry night sky instead.   
  

  11. The door closes and the music stops. It’s a night where everyone is listening to the world and the world is also listening in return.   
  

  12. The boy is mumbling something close to needing more alcohol to forget. Lightning’s hold on the boy does not shillyshally for a second. Kain knows that if her eyes where in view, what he’d see would be even more obdurate.   
  

  13. The boy is trying to steer past her. With the wobble holding his body together and the red in his eyes, it’s more sad than laughable. Lightning is saying something along the lines of “pull yourself together”.   
  

  14. Her voice is much gentler than she lets on, Kain knows well.  
  




281\. “She’s not coming back,” Lightning’s voice is strong then. She’s not talking only to the boy, Kain knows well.   
  


  1. She’s also talking to herself.   
  

  2. “She’s not coming back and she’s happy with someone else right now. Most probably she’s forgotten about you already.”  
  

  3. _She doesn’t know she’s…speaking to my soul, too_.  
  

  4. The boy’s frozen, the punch of reality finally settling in his eyes. Ironically. Lightning continues and she’s as adamant as the snow. “I was in your place. Not so long ago.”   
  

  5. _I know better than anyone that the one sole person who used to be in your brightest dreams can turn into the ones that make your worst nightmares the worst._  
  

  6. The boy looks at her, hard and long and curious and pained. Kain knows he’s trying very, very hard to match her steely eyes with tears and empty hands.   
  

  7. _It’s….not an easy thought.  
  
_
  8. “No matter how loud or how much you scream, if they’re gone they’re gone. Even if you sell your soul to the devil it’s not gonna do shit.”  
  

  9. _I’m happy I’ve stopped doing that before it was too late  
  
_
  10. He internally shoots out numerous profanities at whichever animal did this to Lightning. _But you wouldn’t be this beautiful…._



  1. _Beauty never justifies pain, however  
  
_
  2. “Take care of your heart, boy. I wish someone told me that back then. If someone told me that…even just once…maybe I could’ve gotten my head out of my ass sooner. What’s your name?”   
  

  3. _It would be beautiful if you also came into my life back then, just like how it’s happening with this boy right now  
  
_
  4. _But then I forgot  
  
_
  5. _It’s way better, it’s infinitesimally better, it’s so fucking better that we took the steps together  
  
_
  6. _It’s so fucking better that I met you and lived and we exchanged names so we can entangle our lives, it would’ve been shit if I whispered your name just to breathe through airless nights and just airless nights alone.  
  
_
  7. _I promise, I promise to call your name not just when my arms are empty, but also and mostly when I hold you in my arms. I promise to call your name when the lights are on, just as I promise to do the same when nothing lets us see.  
  
_
  8. _I promise to call your name and love you not because it kills the death in me, but because it’s the life I choose to be filled with, the life I choose to carry with me always.  
  
_
  9. “Hope,” the boy looks up again and looks at Lightning with something more than despair and self-blame.
  10. “Let me tell you something, Hope. The pain may feel like it’s gonna last forever. But one day…one day….when the time is right and you’re ready, someone’s gonna come into your life and completely sweep you off your feet. You’ll regret treating yourself like shit. Giving yourself shit. Telling yourself you’re shit. But that person will only come when you’re ready. So….look ahead.” 



  1. _Promise it, boy. Save it. For the woman who’ll show you that the world isn’t about consuming oxygen tanks to live, but blowing bubbles in the vacuum. for the woman who’ll show you that winning the war isn’t about finding the antidote to nightmares but instead making waking up more worth it. that healing doesn’t mean filling your lungs with alcohol and wishing for a miracle, but instead holding someone’s hand in faith that flowers will someday and soon grow out of both of your bodies’ bulletholes._  
  

  2. It takes the boy a while to thank her, but when he does, he does it properly and gives Lightning his scarf. _Wonder she hasn’t frozen to death yet._ “I’ll go home, please take care and dress warm,” he tells Lightning before he heads the opposite direction.   
  

  3. When it’s just the both of them again and Lightning catches his eye, Kain is starting to see a different person. To him, she’s become even more beautiful….but she didn’t seem to think so.   
  

  4. _Shit…._  
  

  5. They walk in silence, the construction beams and ladders making the night’s shadows look like monsters.   
  

  6. They walk in silence. And tonight, it’s not the usual kind.   
  

  7. It’s something else.   
  

  8. Something neither of them like.  
  

  9. He understands she’s on edge after realizing he heard her say all that – that much’s obvious. After all, it was her past. Everything she’s been trying to get over. Everything she’s been trying to bury with callused hands that have only touched thorns because she believed in flowers. 



  1. Everything she didn’t want him to see.  
  

  2. After countless internal back-and-forth debates with himself, he tries to hold her.   
  

  3. He always seems to miss every time.  
  

  4. “I’ll pretend I heard nothing,” the first sentence out makes him feel like he’s reached out of jailbars. haggled for the key. but the silence needed to be broken at this point.



  1. “It’s fine,” Lightning says although Kain knows it’s not but he won’t press it, “Don’t go out of your way.”  
  

  2. “Whoever that asshole was, fuck him.” He tries fire to melt the ice in Lightning’s voice.



  1. “After all we’ve been through, apparently what we had also went with that motherfucking plane that brought him away,” when Kain realizes that Lightning’s talking more to herself rather than fully trusting him with these difficult truths, he doesn’t quite know how it feels. He doesn’t mind, but hey. This is something quite different.  
  

  2. “He didn’t deserve you.”  
  

  3. “It’s disappointing, how you can never take your heart back.”



  1. _I’ll never steal it from you_ , he wants to look at Lightning long and hard and say it, but he knows she’ll miss it this time.



  1. “I’m sorry, I’m not myself right now,” she looks away from him. He hopes he hasn’t lost her yet.



  1. _Love me till it hurts_ , _because words will never be fucking elaborate enough to make you understand how much I love you,_ he longs to say in the snow.



  1. “You don’t have to be yourself all the time, Lightning,” he’s right – the words don’t seem to reach her.



  1. _Come home, the lights are still on_ , he wants to say. He wishes deeply that faith burned brighter tonight. He wants to ask Lightning when’s the last time she sang to herself. He wants to tell her about all the ways that it gets better, though it seems that she’ll see it for herself soon. Because she has opened her own eyes and made the right choices herself, even if it took long and pain took long and pain is always long.



  1. _Come home, the lights are still on_



  1. The music reaches them again.



  1. “This music won’t stop,” Kain mumbles. He offers his hand. Lightning looks at him, knowing what it means. She doesn’t really mind.



  1. “What if you’re not the one I love?”



  1. Kain doesn’t move his hand.  
  

  2. “What if we’re not the ones we want to keep?” Lightning has already gotten over her fear of getting hurt, Kain could feel from her voice. But her fear of hurting him? Not quite yet.



  1. Kain still doesn’t move his hand. “I won’t take long…I promise,” it’s almost a whisper and maybe she’ll think he sounds like the snow.



  1. Kain moves his hand a little closer. “Just give me one last chance.”



  1. “What if I leave?” Lightning spits out the last word like it’s a thorn. Kain swears a snowflake broke.



  1. Her eyes are unshakeable.



  1. “I won’t take long,” he says again. “I promise.”



  1. Lightning takes his hand.



  1. They start to slow dance.



  1. “I don’t want you, Kain,” it’s too half-hearted. The hyper heartbeat in her chest betray the words, and Kain smiles because he’s never felt a love so intricate, so thoughtful, so deep.



  1. “I said I don’t want you!” Kain doesn’t stop holding her.



  1. “I said I don’t love you,” Lightning tries a bit more softly. Kain doesn’t stop holding her because one of them needs to let her know, to give her a head-up that her actions don’t match with the words she’s saying. For her sanity’s sake, she has to understand that the proximity between them that’s bidirectionally refusing to break and the tightness in her hand as she holds onto Kain betrays the defense mechanism she’s trying to wear between them.  
  

  2. “That’s okay,” Kain whispers softly to her ear, “…whatever it is I’m looking for, it’s not love.”



  1. There are a trillion objurgations dying to shoot out from her eyes like lasers.



  1. There’s something about the snow that makes this whole thing so soundless, so somnolent – the blaze of anger and confusion and insecurity in Lightning’s eyes is terrifying and makes them look watery with the kind of tears Kain wouldn’t know exactly how to blow and wipe away - although in a flash, he knows exactly how. Maybe this is all terrifying because the probability of entropy is almost threatening to pull them apart - one wrong word and they’ll both see for themselves that two dreadfully-broken people will damage each other beyond repair, but then they both know they’ll prove the other side of the rule and prove to themselves that they’ll be the ones who’ll put smiles on each other’s faces. 



  1. Her lips are quiet and soft and almost sound like she’s dreaming of the wind and she wants to tell him about it, and she’s waiting for him to ask how hard it blew. He wants to ask Lightning if she knew from before that sailing with a speed faster than the wind itself it possible, even if the water itself is calm. He wants to ask Lightning if she’s ever heard that it’s also possible to harness the power of the wind to sail in a direction that’s completely against it. He gently cups her chin, half-surprised and half-expectant that she trusts his touch, and he wants to ask her if she ever thought that both of these can be done at the same time.



  1. Kain has lost count of how many hard looks they’ve given each other. He knows it will be harder to estimate how many different emotions and protests and concerns and almost-confessions flash into both their eyes, even if they both reflected each other pretty much.



  1. They kiss.



  1. They stop.



  1. They kiss.



  1. They stop.



  1. After a while, Kain stops counting. He’ll just put it this way – both of them are trying to resist each other, but can’t. He guesses this whole thing is even more undefiable than Newton’s Laws of Motion.



  1. “This isn’t right. I’m bad-”



  1. “For you.”



  1. “I’d go, but-”



  1. “I don’t wanna”



  1. “leave…leave..it’s gonna be worse, it’s gonna be-”



  1. “Better. Kiss me again.”



  1. Lightning does nothing for a while, just lets Kain hoist her up the nearest counter with the least construction tools and dirt. lets Kain put his ear against her heartbeat.



  1. He listens for something, and she does the same.



  1. “It won’t take long,” Lightning tells him even more quietly.



  1. “It won’t take long,” Kain kisses her hand after the words leave his lips. Everything is still.  
  

  2. “Just…” it’s hard for Lightning to say the words but she’d be damned because Kain’s patient eyes are making the words come out of her as easy as they go. “Just give me one last chance, please.”



  1. Kain wants to ask her if she knows she never has to beg.



  1. “Just give me one last chance, please,” Lightning says it so quietly Kain has to read her lips to understand the words, “It won’t take long.”



  1. Kain wants to ask her if she knows he’ll give her all the time in the world.



  1. Lightning bends down and kisses him again.



  1. The music stops.



  1. “The music stopped,” Kain’s lips are warm and wet even if their breaths still smoke through the air.



  1. “The music stopped,” Kain says again because he realizes halfway they’re at the point where they no longer have a need for words.



  1. “Can I give you a hundred more chances? It won’t take long,” he says before kissing her again.



  
  
  


-lklklklklklklkl-  
  
  
  


  1. “ _Thank you_ ,” they both send and receive the same message. It’s starting to feel like the wind has stopped whipping against them and is finally starting to part the tangle of the vines that obscure their view.  
  
  
  
  




-lklklklklklklkl-  
  
  


  1. Some days, Lightning still weeps.   
  

  2. They’re all kinds of tears.   
  

  3. More like the kinds that face the East and the rising sun.  
  

  4. When Kain isn’t there, the threads in her storm glass keep her company and remind her it doesn’t always have to be like that.  
  

  5. She knows better than anyone that it will take a while for her to let herself _want_ all she wants.  
  

  6. Some days, and for far too many nights – no, a far-too-prevalent percentage of Lightning’s thoughts are consumed by such confused anger as to why Kain Highwind is an entity that’s always around her yet someone she can’t (bring herself) (convince herself) to keep. (in so many different ways). Yet it’s anger inundated with too much confusion to qualify as such, and it’s confusion blurred with too much anger although this is not an issue of damaged pride.



  1. In no time, the coalesced frustration unwrinkles. unbinds. unknots itself in the darkness of its own shadows. then it all seems to be okay as if there was no damage done in the first place. She doesn’t let herself talk to Kain in instances (or periods) like this because tornadoes have to travel miles and miles and miles before they exhaust themselves. (maybe there might be a kiss at the end) (but it’s only a maybe and not a certainty).



  1. It’s not that she’s too prideful to bare her chaotic mishmash of feelings – Kain is all she has (or all she doesn’t have). And damned if tornadoes spin to be of air that touches both the ground she stomps on and the clouds that are a sick funny joke, because Lightning would rather choke on her own spit swallowing her self-destruction than let Kain ever get caught in it.



  1. (Order is heaven’s first law).



  1. And even if she can’t hold Kain at night (or have Kain hold her), as painful as how long it drags on.  
  

  2. Or even if she can’t (more like won’t let herself) kiss him yet in stark, broad daylight because she herself doesn’t know what the hell she’s feeling



  1. And even if she loves Kain so much that the hurricane in her heart forces windy tears from her eyes



  1. And even if this can never be registered under the universe’s definition of the bigass, grand, ultimate theory, she has to



  1. Let Kain soar.



  1. She’ll carry the baggage and emptiness (apprehension) (uncertainty) like stars splayed to color blank rose petals, because the happiness on the real undersides are her only entry tickets to the future even if she still has to wait for the barcodes to show. She’ll look beyond the sky and even further than Saturn which carries the Solar System’s strongest winds, and she’ll try to be wind and it will all work out perfectly because the pain, she knows, will temper



  1. and the pain will gorgeously camber into a genuine arc of blessings, the kind you get as a reward for sacrifice. Wind changes name depending on its strength and Lightning is sure the hurricane will be a gale or a breeze or even a kiss more often than it will be destructive enough to be known as a hurricane.



  1. and the drawl in Kain’s voice will lure wind and sun out, and regeneration will creep through completely-clueless glass windows and prove that they’re perfect as they are



  1. and Lightning



  1. and Kain



  1. is a person who will stay in their lives  
  

  2. and this is perfectly how they both want it to be.




End file.
